The captain’s secretary AI confirmed that he was currently meeting with Major Verkin Vall, leader of the Sleeping Dragon mercenary clan, and Captain Rei Vall, their intel officer. But that was all it told me, and I wanted to know more. Who were these guys?
The public databases had more details. Sleeping Dragon had a regiment of ground troops and a good-size flotilla of warships, including a couple of frigates that made the Square Deal look dinky. They did security work, pirate hunting and the occasional bit of ground warfare. Expensive, with a good reputation for honoring their contracts. Beyond that the details got fuzzy, because they used one of those stupid agitprop services.
I tried another tack. Kavin’s ID code was registered in the right name, and linked back to the Sleeping Dragons just like it should. Father, Verkin Vall. Mothers, Rei and Janet Vall. Well, that must be an interesting family. Maybe they fabbed him or something, using genes from all three of them?
Yeah, there were pictures and vid clips on their social sites, and he looked nothing like his parents. His father was a towering mountain of muscle, bigger than anyone I’d ever seen, and he always seemed to be carrying a heavy weapon of some kind. Rei was a catgirl, one of the furry types that looked like a bipedal cat. She was tiny, too. Barely taller than me, which looked really weird next to her spouses. Oh, and Janet was some kind of Amazon dryad or orc or something. Tall, super athletic and really stacked, with green skin and long hair in a green so dark it was almost black. The pictures showed a couple of older brothers, too, and a sister who looked my age.
Kavin was listed on Sleeping Dragon’s rolls as an Apprentice Trooper, basically just a trainee. Like me. How was a guy like this just a trainee?
There weren’t a lot of public records about his career, but a quick scan found the explanation for his enhancements. The Sleeping Dragon clan were trying to turn themselves into supersoldiers. Every year they plowed some of their profits back into improving the enhancements they used, and their kids got the whole set. Plus a lot of training. They were really big on that, from what I could tell.
The band switched to a slow song, and suddenly the datanet wasn’t enough to distract me anymore. I found myself standing much closer now, brushing against him as we moved together, my hands on his shoulders and his around my waist.
“Finished uncovering all my hidden secrets?” He rumbled.
I felt myself blush. No, darn it, don’t let him get to you. Play it cool, Alice.
“I think I’m jealous,” I admitted. “A school that teaches tactics and logistics sounds like fun.”
He shrugged. “It’s useful. Did you really have to take a class on growing flowers back on Felicity?”
He’d been digging into my background while I was checking out his? I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered he was interested, or annoyed he could split his attention that much while we were dancing.
“Don’t remind me,” I groaned. “I think I’ve been scarred for life. The only thing worse was organic gardening.”
He gave me a quizzical look. “Organic gardening? As opposed to what, inorganic gardening? Do they grow silicon-based plants or something?”
“No, see, in Newspeak ‘organic’ means natural and good. Everything artificial is supposed to be bad, and never mind that the whole biosphere was designed by a bunch of ecological engineers. So organic gardening means growing food by sticking seeds in the dirt and trying to coax them along without using nanotech or microbots to protect them from predators. You can’t even use gardening bots. For some reason doing things with your own hands doesn’t count, though, so you end up spending stupid amounts of time manually watering the plants and pulling up weeds.”
I realized he was studying me intently, and stumbled to a stop. “What?”
“That would drive me nuts,” he said soberly. “I’m glad you got out of there.”
Was I blushing again? Time for a change of subject.
“Me too. You’re a really good dancer.”
“Years of training,” he explained.
I made a face, and he laughed.
“No, not like normal training. The clan’s been working out how to teach kids with eidetic reflexes ever since they were invented. If you do it right it makes a big difference, even for people like us.”
“Like us, huh?”
He smiled. “Come on, it’s obvious when we’re dancing. Nothing throws you, and you learn every move the first time you see it. We should try sparring sometime.”
The thought set my heart racing. I’d never done anything like that. Good girls would never practice hurting people. But I already knew I was a bad girl at heart.
My thoughts were interrupted by a com call from Naoko.
“Alice? Can you come up to the conference room? Our captain has some questions for you.”
“I guess so,” I sighed. “He’s really got bad timing.”
“Oh? Oh, I see you’ve made a friend. One moment.” There was a pause, and then she came back on the line. “Please bring the younger Mr. Vall as well.”
I looked up at Kavin, and realized he’d gotten a com call while I was talking.
“Duty calls,” he said.
“Looks like it,” I agreed. “Guess we’d better see what the old people want.”
For some reason I’d assumed the captain was meeting with Sleeping Dragon alone, and Naoko was just playing servant. But no, she had a seat at the table right next to him. Chief West was with them too, and a tall blonde woman I’d only seen pictures of. Beatrice Campbell, the Square Deal’s first mate.
“Thank you for joining us, Alice,” Captain Sokol said. “I try not to infringe on the crew’s leave time, but this is urgent. Did you happen to capture images of those inugami you encountered on Felicity?”
“Yes, sir. Of course I did, it would be pretty embarrassing to forget someone’s face. Naoko didn’t get them?”
Naoko sighed. “I don’t have video capture capabilities, Alice. Collecting evidence regarding the misdeeds of others would be rather contrary to intentions of my designers.”
“Really? You know, you’ve never actually told me what kind of model you started out as.”
There were embarrassed looks all around the table, and Naoko hung her head.
Oh, please. I rolled my eyes.
“Guys, I do know about personal companions. Geez, just because I’m not quite old enough to want one yet doesn’t make me stupid. I just don’t get what that has to do with secrecy restrictions.”
“The yakuza develop androids for vices that are too skeezy for the regular manufacturers to touch, kid,” Major Vall said. “Mindbreak and rape, torture and vore, all kinds of weirdness. They sell androids that crave abuse and hate it at the same time, and that’s just scratching the surface. Do you really want to know more than that?”
Good goddess, I wish I hadn’t been crawling the datanet for clarification while he was talking. I felt sick.
“No, sir.”
“Then quit asking embarrassing questions, and play the damn vid,” Beatrice growled.